I am on the phone with my mother. She has sent me a card she made on the computer, inside of which she has tucked a check and written on the memo line: Have fun at yoga camp! On the back, she has copied and pasted clip art of a woman sitting in a posture of repose, legs crossed, soles of her feet facing heaven. Next week, I will be silent for seven days.
But now I am talking on the phone with my mother in Surprise, Arizona, marveling that she is still living, that she still knows my name, my voice, and thinking I should really be going to sit in her presence, not on a mat 300 more miles away, but that’s not something my mother would ever say. She’s never been into guilt, my mother.
Instead, she tells me about the May/June birthday party they hosted on the patio for 34 people, macaroni salad and chicken from Frye’s Market. She tells me about the pickle ball she played from 7 a.m. to a quarter of 10; the ladies’ luncheon she will attend with the ladies who sew & quilt, which my mother has never done, but They like me, so I’m invited.
She tells me about the card she made for her friend, my age, whose mother died and left her money to have the cosmetic surgery she always wanted. You wouldn’t believe all the cards there are for new boobs, my mother says. She tells me she found a picture of a door knocker and copied it twice. Inside she typed: Nice knockers! Do you think she’ll like it? my mother asks. Yes, I say,
I think it’s perfect.
A native of Los Angeles, Marci Vogel has published fiction and nonfiction in the Los Angeles Times and the Culver City News. She is completing an MFA in poetry, and her poems have appeared in Colorado Review and Spillway. A past participant of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Vogel was recently nominated for the AWP Intro Journals Award and a Pushcart Prize.
*Photo courtesy of caitlinburke.